


Blooming Through the Ashes

by notanightlight



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gigolas Week, M/M, post-Helms deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1196778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notanightlight/pseuds/notanightlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope springs from most unlikely of places and the harshest of circumstances. </p><p>Written for Day 2 of gigolas week: Helms deep</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blooming Through the Ashes

 

The atmosphere in Helms Deep was an odd mix of the elation of victory, the solemnity of loss, and the flurry of movement that accompanied the imminent departure of the Rohirrim.

It also heralded the imminent departure of Gimli and his companions with them.

Unfortunately, Gimli was one companion short.

He snorted to himself.  Of course the Elf would go missing with less than an hour until they left.

Gimli shouldered his pack as he continued scanning the crowd for Legolas.

Near the edge of the bustle, Gimli spotted Arod nosing at the sparse grasses that had been trampled by the feet of armies. And where Arod was, Legolas was likely to be near.

Gimli ambled over to the grey, reaching up to pat Arod’s neck in greeting.

“Well there you are,” he muttered softly, “Now where is that flighty rider of yours?”

Arod whickered and nudged Gimli’s shoulder with his nose.

“Not me, you daft beast!” Gimli grumbled, “Now where’s- Aha!”

Over towards the wall of the deep, Legolas stood, pack thrown over a shoulder, and head tilted in that strange birdlike manner of his.  

Gimli followed his gaze and realized that Legolas was studying the little mannish girl they had met, Freda, who was in turn seriously studying a scraggly patch of green growing from a crack in the rocks.

Gimli came closer to the two, but refrained from calling out, curious despite himself to see how the Elf and Girl would interact with no other being as a buffer.  

Legolas silently crossed to the little girl’s side, knelt and set his pack down lightly.  It occurred to Gimli that the Elf never seemed to do anything with any weight to it.  Light footsteps, light voice, even his blows in battle seemed light; less like he was bringing his knife down on an opponent, and more like his knives were just moving through them.  It had no bearing on his deadliness in battle, but it did strike Gimli as odd.

The Elf sat motionless beside Freda, his bright eyes staring down the same scraggly patch of green.

Gimli glanced at Arod, patiently standing besides him, and raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘See?   _I’m_ not the strange rider.’

Just then, Legolas leaned closer to Freda, eyes still trained on the little green patch.

“Why are we staring so?” he asked, his voice scarcely loud enough to reach Gimli’s ears.

“Because it’s a rock flower,” Freda replied, as though it was obvious.  Perhaps to the girl and the Elf it was, but Gimli would hardly call that little bit of green a flower.  

“Ah, so it is,” Legolas replied with a small nod.  Another minute of quiet observation passed between them before he leaned over again.  “And why must we watch it so closely?”

Freda heaved the sigh of a younger sibling, used to explaining things to older people who just couldn’t see what was so clear to her.

“Because, I’ve never seen one before and I don’t want to miss it if it blooms,” she explained, “Mama says that it’s not time for rock flowers to bloom yet, but it must be soon!”

Gimili found there something slightly absurd about a mannish child, less than a decade old, explaining plantlife to a Woodelf of who could possibly count so many centuries.  But the child spoke truly, as Gimli could just make out clusters of tiny green buds at the ends of the thin stalks that snaked out from the little jumble of leaves.

“Mama told me about them when we were down in the caves. She said they only grow in tough places, like the Deep,” Freda continued, staring at the buds as though they held the answer to every question her little head could devise, “Mama says that they are special, because they grow where other flowers cannot.”  

Legolas turned his head to face her as she spoke, quietly contemplating what she said with that unfathomable Elven stare.

“I want...” Freda paused, “I want to see if it’s true.”

Her little face adopted a determined expression.  

“So they have to bloom before we leave, and I will not miss it!”

Legolas seemed to weigh something for a moment before he nodded to himself.

“Very well,” he said softly into the silence that followed Freda’s declaration.

Legolas leaned forward and gently cupped his hands around one of the clusters of buds.  He brought his lips to his hands and began to speak into them.  

Gimli strained to hear, but could only make out the lilting notes of the Elf’s language.

Finally, Legolas sat back, hands still cupped around the end of the stem and the slightest of smiles upon his lips.

“Shall we see what can grown in this place?” he asked the little girl regarding him with curiosity.

Gimli could not help but draw a surprised gasp as Legolas slowly parted his hands to reveal a bundle of tiny, four-petalled flowers, as white as the snows that capped the mountain peaks.

The little girl’s eyes widened in wonder as she took in the newly blossomed flowers.

“Oh, Mister Elf, they’re beautiful!” she exclaimed, throwing her little arms around the unprepared Elf’s neck, “How did you do that?”

Legolas chuckled lightly as Freda detangled her arms.

“I simply said there was a charming little girl who wanted very dearly to see it blossom,” he replied.

A huge grin spread over her face.  “I have to show Mama!”

Legolas carefully pinched the flowers’ stem, severing the bundle from the rest of the plant.

“Here,” he said as he tucked the flower behind Freda’s ear and secured it to her hair with a clever twist of Elven fingers, “Now you may take them to her.”

“Thank you, Mister Elf!” Freda beamed.

Gimli watched as the little girl sprinted off, bright white flowers nestled against her yellow curls.  There was the subtlest hint of melancholy in the Elf’s expression as he watched her dart into the bustling Rohirrim.

Gimli approached Legolas where he still knelt by the Deep’s wall, Arod lingering behind.

“That was a fine trick, lad,” Gimli said.  Legolas looked up at him with strange twist to his lips, as if they could decide whether to smile or frown.

“In truth,” he murmured, “I was not sure I would still be able to coax the flowers into blooming.”

Legolas took a deep breath that was not quite a sigh.

“There is so much blood on my hands, and a good deal of it still fresh,” Legolas explained, “So life does not come as easily to them as it did in my youth.”

“I don’t know about that,” Gimli replied, looking out at the bustling crowd of men, “I think there are quite a few lives here that are owed to those hands.”

Now Legolas did smile, and a short, warm laugh escaped his lips.

“I suppose,” he conceded, “But then there must be as great a number owed to your hands as well, my friend.”

Gimli chuckled, glad to see the Elf’s mood improving.

He glanced over at the little green plant clinging to the stone, and the single stem cropped shorter than the others.

“I am somewhat surprised that you plucked those flowers, considering how twitchy you get about cutting any livewood for a fire,” Gimli commented.

Legolas turned and gently ran a finger over the severed end of the stem.

“They could do no good for the plant,” he said, smile falling slightly, “They would have withered on the stem and never come to fruit.  It was too early for them.”

He brushed his fingertips over the other stems still heavy with sleeping buds.

“It takes time for them to truly be ready, and no Elven skills can change that.  I may have made them bloom, but I could not make the rest of the world ready for the flowers.”

Legolas looked up at Gimli, peace and fondness evident in his face.

“Things must blossom in their own time, if they are to be fruitful.  It is worth being patient.  But in this case, they were of even more value to show a child that beauty may be found in the harshest of circumstances.”

And Gimli thought of white flowers and a child’s rekindled smile, and thought that, just perhaps, the Elf did do things of a certain weight after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested, the flowers are based on northern rock cress, you can find at the address below.
> 
> http://www.ukwildflowers.com/Web_pages/arabidopsis_petraea_northern_rock_cress.htm
> 
> I tried to make sure that Legolas actually knew what he was talking about. Flowers that bloom early may often be out of cycle with their pollinators, which means that the flowers never serve their purpose and the plant does not bear seeds.


End file.
